by Robin Cain
Moments later, a sudden roar of screeching tires, followed by a terrified scream, reached through the walls of the building. The girls in the clinic, now racing to the windows to see what had happened, all gasped at the scene before them.
The pregnant young girl with the badly-dyed blonde hair, who only moments before had decided to keep her baby, had become the victim of another one of her bad decisions. With arms and legs contorted in some monstrous form of torture, her shattered body lay motionless, broken and bloody on the asphalt.
The driver had seen her at the last minute after she seemed to come out of nowhere. He’d slammed on his brakes, swerving to try and miss her. But, when she momentarily froze and tried to run the other way, it had been too late. Hitting her head-on, he watched in horror as she violently flipped up onto his windshield and flew over the hood of his car. By the time she landed on the street, his mind had frozen in disbelief. His car slammed into a parked car on the side of the road, momentarily trapping him in his car with the exploded airbag.
The driver managed to get out and get to her first and, kneeling at her side, he checked for a pulse. As distant sirens announced their approach, the dull, lifeless expression in Sam’s open eyes told him it was too late. He sat down on the street and, out of sorrow and shock, began to weep.
The clinic receptionist stood on the sidewalk, sorrowfully recognizing the futility of the situation. She began to gather the girls, trying to get them to go back inside the clinic.
“It is too late to help her, ladies. Come on in now,” she gently coaxed. With many of them now in a state of shock, they allowed themselves to be gently herded back into the waiting room like lost sheep. The television, still droning in the background, continued with the day’s news events.
“Thank you, Tom,” the anchorwoman said. “In other news and related to our last story, the Los Angeles-based software company MineWare, owned by Frank Campelletti, the husband of the murder victim Sadie Campelletti, made the news today also when a top employee was arrested on charges of burglary and espionage. Citra Banks, a longtime employee of the world famous software giant, was arrested at company headquarters today and taken into police custody. Sources close to the scene report Ms. Banks is accused of stealing and attempting to resell an as-yet-unreleased software product.”
Film footage of Citra Banks being led out of MineWare’s headquarters, handcuffed and staring boldly into the camera, filled the television screen as the announcer finished up the report.
“Frank Campelletti, owner and CEO of MineWare, reportedly in seclusion following the tragic murder of his wife, could not be reached for comment.”
thirty-three
FRANK SHUT OFF the television and went into his study, trying to find some quiet space and time in which to think. It seemed his name and recent tragedies were being discussed, ad-nauseam, in every form of media.
Once inside his study, there was a gentle knock on the door.
“Frank? Are you okay?” Carol asked.
“Yes, thanks, I’m fine. I couldn’t sleep. Think I’m going to do a little reading. Get my mind off things. Sorry if I woke you.”
“Sure you don’t need anything before I go back to bed?”
“No, I’ll be fine. See you in the morning.”
“Okay, good night. Please don’t hesitate to wake me if you need anything. Try and get some sleep.”
Frank listened to her footsteps head down the hall.
It was just the two of them in the big house now. Everyone else had gone and the silence was a relief. He just wanted to be alone. His mind reeling, he wondered when and if it would all end. His heart ached from grief and his body from lack of sleep. He had been trying to focus on one thing at a time, certain if he didn’t he would lose his mind. The thought of Sadie being gone was becoming more than he could even bear. The sight of her lying on that cold steel table in the morgue now haunted his days and his nights. The news that she had been eleven weeks pregnant was not anything he had even tried to come to terms with yet.
A baby.
Just hearing the words spoken aloud had made him want to kill someone.
When he had read her e-mail late last Friday saying it had been too late to get any news from the doctor, he’d just written it off, assuming that it had turned out negative. He’d thought for Sadie to have gotten pregnant so quickly would have to have been a miracle. Now he realized he had been wrong. She had never had the chance to get the news. Instead, she had been lying somewhere in the bottom of the lake.
The thought of it brought tears to his eyes.
Ugh... why did I let her go? Why?
He honestly didn’t know how much more he could take.
And, if that didn’t seem like enough, getting the call Monday night from his security guard telling him that Citra had broken into his office was the final blow. Thank God he had prepared himself for it before all this.
He had known she was up to no good the minute, months ago, when she had started poking around in departments that were none of her business. He’d made it his goal right then to try and stay one step ahead of her. After all, he had hired her for that very same brilliant plotting mind she had tried to use against him. He had known her too long—known her motivations too well—to let her deceive him. He marveled at both her cunning and her stupidity.
And he had succeeded in staying one move ahead of her.
He remembered when he got the first hint she was going to betray him. They had been out together for dinner after a meeting. She had started out innocently enough, asking him questions about his plans for the future and his plans for her, as well as what he planned to do with the reins of MineWare if and when he retired.
Which department head made the most money? Did he plan on taking the company public? Were there any new secret products he was working on?
Normal questions, he’d thought at first, but then she had begun getting too opinionated and meddlesome regarding his answers. In hindsight, it wasn’t her questions so much as the tone in which she asked them.
Weeks later he had caught her in his office going through his desk. She had thought quickly on her feet, telling him she was trying to plan a birthday dinner for him and that she wanted to check his appointment book for the night she was considering. But her transparent lie hadn’t fooled him.
Then there had been the rumors Citra was shopping around for a better offer within the industry. When enough of his friends had brought her behavior to his attention, he could only believe there had to be truth to it. When asked outright, she never admitted she was talking to other firms and, with no concrete proof, he had allowed her to string him along. Her lies became the cornerstone of the plan he conceived.
He had become increasingly concerned as Citra’s deceit became more obvious and, like the old saying goes, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” Frank decided to do just that. He offered Citra a partnership—though he’d really had no belief it would ever come to fruition. He believed she would try to steal from him long before the OurWare project was done, but making her a deal would ensure he could keep a closer watch on her.
MineWare had a security system that rivaled any in existence— he had made certain of that—but his products were his life and he couldn’t risk gambling with them. With back-up systems for his back-ups, he wasn’t certain of what Citra was capable—given her talents and desire. He thought it wise to approach the brainpower of his company for a solution.
Together they had come up with an answer—a pass card to circumvent existing security and allow someone to gain access to company files. The trap was that the card would be phony. It would trigger recording devices to catch the thief in the act. Then, as an added security feature, Frank wrote a dummy server program designed to fool the intruder. The intruder would log on with a fake password and be directed to simulated company files. This would give the impression the computer server had actually been broken into. It was brilliant and he knew, with the right amount of plannin
g and just enough luck, it would be the perfect trap to catch Citra.
The team Frank assembled consisted of his most trusted people. The fake pass card, replicated to match the familiar company ID, was programmed to turn on the secondary security system that would record all data and video traffic. The dummy server program was installed on Frank’s computer so that, when the fake password was input, it would automatically and seamlessly switch over. The only thing left to do at that point was to get Citra to believe she could actually get away with it.
Frank had put his plan into action one night when they were at dinner, a few weeks before he and Citra went to Paris. He’d pretended to drink too much, dumping his glass out when she was out of sight, and he used the guise to pretend he was confiding in her. Convincing Citra was the pièce de résistance. He had treated her to a special showing of his “secret pass card” and engaged her in a game of guessing his even-more-secret password.
She had been so gullible. He had completely played to her ego. When her face lit up like a Christmas tree, he knew she had figured it out. It would only be a matter of time before her greed finally got the best of her. He’d had no idea when she would try to steal the pass card from him, but there was never any question in his mind that she would. As it turned out, he only had to wait until their trip to Paris.
He had been too tired and jet-lagged to notice it at the time, but she had pulled it off brilliantly and without his knowledge. It wasn’t until he’d gone to sleep that night and gotten up to use the bathroom that it had finally dawned on him. She had taken the card when he’d left his jacket and wallet behind while going to the men’s room.
He waited a week and nothing more had happened. For awhile, he had even thought she’d had a change of heart. He even began to doubt his instincts about her motives. Staying at the company and working hard to help the greater good, she seemed to be more like the girl he had been originally attracted to. It had seemed like there was hope for the two of them yet.
After the car accident he became convinced that nothing would ever come of her having taken the card, assuming his new set of circumstances had changed her mind. Entertaining the possibility she had a soul after all, he let the whole thing drop. Being in rehab, which consumed all of his energy and focus at the time, had actually helped push the whole idea out of his head.
As their relationship began to fall apart after the accident and his having so much time on his hands to think, he became more vigilant in his views about Citra. Proving to be far more insensitive and self-centered than he could have ever imagined, she showed him just how wrong he had been about her. He recalled the day he finally returned to work and all he could see when he looked at her was a complete stranger.
Though certainly still physically beautiful and desirable on the surface, she had allowed her ruthlessness and selfishness to obscure her beauty. All the tight dresses, high heels and cleavage in the world couldn’t camouflage her true colors. He had been so blinded by the way she stroked his ego for so long that it came as a shock to finally see the truth. That first day back, after her awkwardly-cold hug, he had gone straight to Security to make sure there was no way she could harm him.
Confirmation she’d thought she had finally found his Achilles’ heel came by way of his senior programmer, Ray. When Ray called, telling him what had happened in a meeting Citra had attended, his instincts had told him the time had come. The OurWare project was proving to be too great a temptation for her. It would provide the perfect opportunity to catch her. When he got the call from his friend, Dan, at APEX a few weeks later, he knew she was going to make her move.
He had been friends with Dan for years; they’d gone to school together. Dan kept seeing Citra at the APEX headquarters—in departments like Legal where she had no business—and knowing she worked for Frank, he had called to give him a courtesy heads-up. Theirs was a cutthroat business and no one knew that better than the people at the top.
Having all he needed, Frank had gone to visit Hank in Security and explained to him what to expect. Poor Hank, he remembered, hadn’t really understood what was being explained to him, but repeating all the steps back several times, he was finally convinced he knew what to do. With the dummy program, the security video and data monitors in place, everyone in on the plan then just waited for Citra to make her next move. Looking back on it now, Frank couldn’t imagine she’d have picked a worse time.
Sitting there now, alone in his darkened study, he wondered if Citra hadn’t purposely timed her betrayal to coincide with his being occupied with the tragedy of Sadie’s disappearance. He wouldn’t be too surprised if she had—the traitorous bitch—but getting the call from Hank did come as a surprise in a way. He’d held on to the notion for a long time that Citra couldn’t possibly have been capable of such deception. The awful truth now cut deep.
With the video and data tapes in his possession, having proof of all she had done, he’d called the CEO at APEX the next day. Catching him off guard, threatening severe legal and civil action, Frank had successfully, albeit reluctantly, convinced him to be part of the plan to catch Citra, getting him to agree to play along until Citra could be dealt with in person. Wanting to see her get all, and more, than she deserved, Frank had only to come up with a creative way to make it hurt the most. After a call into his legal department to see if, besides having her fired and arrested for burglary, he could sue her for millions as well, he contacted the police. He wanted her to pay for her crime publicly and, according to all reports on the news he’d seen so far, she had.
Sadie would have taken great joy in living to see this day.
Sadie. Just saying her name caused unspeakable sadness. He wished he could have told her that while she was alive.
What will life bring me now? Not knowing where it had all gone wrong, he questioned how he would get through the days ahead. Not long, really, after his accident, he’d thought things were beginning to finally turn around. He and Sadie had gotten to a good place together; he was done with Citra; and business was good.
Tyler Holmes.
An unfamiliar name—yet it was obvious he was intricately involved in some way. Desperately weary from the efforts of trying to understand that which made no sense, he wondered what this man had to do with Sadie. She had never mentioned anyone by that name. She had never mentioned anything about him.
Reminded of all the aggravation he had caused Sadie over the past months, he now doubted his right to question anything she had done. Without the energy or desire to consider the possibilities, he told himself it didn’t matter now. What goes around comes around. Isn’t that what his mother always used to say?
Billy Harwood was the son-of-a-bitch who got everything going wrong. If he had just kept away from Sadie, none of this would have happened. Frank had made a simple phone call to his father’s old buddy, asking that Billy be warned. It was supposed to have just been a warning, but, from what he was told later, Billy had gotten violent and cocky. That’s when Frank’s messenger had taken it upon himself to see that Billy paid. It was made to look like an overdose.
He still couldn’t believe he’d gotten himself tangled up in that one. He’d gotten lucky, though. Thank God. Turned out that the messenger had been a pro after all. Following weeks of futile investigation, the case had been closed and the finger had never been pointed in his direction again. Though he knew he wasn’t directly responsible for any of it, guilt came knocking on his conscience quite often now.
A man died because of me.
I wasn’t a good husband. And now I’m not going to be a father...
The thought of it ripped at his heart.
All at once, Frank felt as if there was a tight strap wrapped around his chest. Somewhere in the back of his head, a subtle pounding began. He was suddenly having trouble breathing. Struggling to get air into his lungs, he felt the perspiration bead up on his forehead and under his arms.
Panic set in when the pain in his chest wouldn’t subside.
&nb
sp; Sweet Jesus... I’m having a heart attack!
Seeing spots before his eyes, he was convinced he was going to die. The room, now spinning, was moving in on him. The walls got closer, waving and wriggling, as they descended upon him. He couldn’t catch his breath and the pain was not subsiding.
His heart racing and his mind now reeling, he realized he needed to try to talk himself through whatever it was that was happening.
Breathe.
In.
Breathe.
Out.
Breathe.
Slower.
Breathe.
Sweat continued to trickle down his torso. The hammering in his head, continuing the assault on his brain, seemed to double its pace.
Breathe.
Slowly...
Very slowly...
Breathe...
Just a few more minutes and I’ll be fine.
Slowly, as he continued concentrating on each of his breaths, he realized he wasn’t dying after all.
The pain in his chest wasn’t getting any worse. The walls were no longer moving.
Focusing all his energy on just trying to relax, he realized it was only some kind of panic attack.
Breathe.
Breathe.
If he could just push all these terrible thoughts from his mind for now, he told himself, everything would be alright. There was nothing that could be done to change the past; nothing he could do to bring back Sadie. And he knew there would never be a cure for the pain in his chest.
Fixing his eyes on the horizon outside of Sadie’s office window, he saw the soft glow of daylight beginning to peek over the hills on the far side of Lake Sullivan.
He would survive.
I just have to continue breathing.
epilogue
JANIE SITS alone in the dark on the floor of her L.A. apartment. With a half-empty bottle of vodka in one hand and a brand new razor knife in the other, she realizes it’s becoming harder to think straight. She carefully fans out the old newspaper clipping on the carpet next to her, reading it one more time to help her remember. The smiling face of her dead brother, Frankie, stares back at her.